Cancelled
by Qui-ti
Summary: Spike and Buffy are living the dream... until a shocking announcement temporarily puts their life on hold. [Post NFA, Fluff]


A/N: Just a little belated Valentine's Day fluff. :) Hope you like, since I wrote this in under an hour, haha. Oh, and fyi-- this takes place about 3 or 4 years after NFA.

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_**Cancelled

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**_

Buffy Summers was enjoying a quiet afternoon at home. She was sprawled out comfortably on the armchair in her living room, watching a video of the latest batch of slayers in action against a nest of vamps and very pleased with the footage. Giles' reassembled Watchers' Council had been much more successful—not to mention popular amongst the slayers it led—than that of what seemed to be time long passed, when in actuality, they'd only left Sunnydale four years ago. Rubbing the bulge in her belly with a contented little sigh, she switched off the video and made to make herself a sandwich—pregnancy, luckily enough, had not left her eating strange concoctions that would have made Dawn run screaming for the hills. Nope, just the same ol' eggplant sandwich.

"SODDING, BLEEDING, BUGGERING HELL!"

"What happened?!" Buffy yelled as she rushed into the bedroom, Spike's heart wrenching exclamation having reached her ears only moments before. She felt the baby inside of her give a squirm of protest at her spurt of exertion, but the bleached blond had _sounded _nearly as bad as he looked—his face was pale and sweaty as he ran his hands through his hair, sitting on the edge of their bed and staring at the floor as if he'd just received the worst news in his life. "Spike?" Buffy questioned, slowly approaching the mumbling vampire as if he'd lapsed back into his insanity of years before. The TV was on, and she glanced at it quickly to see if the news had revealed a terrible tragedy of some sort, but it was merely showing a Slim-Fast commercial. "Spike!"

"Can't believe it," he muttered, shaking his head and letting out a pitiful laugh. "Never thought they'd do it, if I could stop it I would, love, I swear—"

"What's going on!" she asked again, her voice rising as her frustration with his lack of forthcoming coupled with the hormones of her seven-month-pregnant body came together in a very unmixy way.

Finally, the love of her life met her eyes, his own blue orbs swimming with unshed tears. He tried to speak several times, but each attempt was failed as the lump in his throat refused to go away. Finally, after a courageous swallow, the trembling vampire managed to croak, "It's gone!"

"_What_ is gone?"

"They've… They've cancelled Passions!"

There was an eon of silence in the room as Buffy swore their child let out a chuckle inside of her. "Did you just say," Buffy began, "that I came running in here, with my aching back and forty-pound stomach," a pointed glare, "to hear that _a TV show_ will no longer be playing?"

Immediately, the reasoning behind her annoyance was clear to the still-sniffling blond sitting dejectedly on the side of the bed. It didn't ease his own pain, however—the questions of whether Theresa and Ethan would ever get together, how many more times Sheridan would die, and of when Tabitha would finally succeed in her endeavors were too painful to ignore. "I can't believe you're being so cold about this, Buffy!" he said, his lower lip jutting out in a pout. "You know how much this show's meant to me the past eight years—"

"Oh, so your love for me six of those years is second to your obsession with the affairs of the citizens of Harmony?!" the Slayer countered, narrowing her eyes at the vampire in malice. "What if I'd fallen when I came running in here? What if something had happened to the baby?"

Knowing full-well that _nothing_ was going to happen to their child nestled inside his strong lover, Spike resisted the urge to flippantly avoid the comment. But he knew just how volatile Buffy'd been getting the past few months of her pregnancy, and any way to avoid conflict—no matter _how_ justified he'd be in having a few exclamations about his favorite show of all time being cancelled—would be of the good—for everyone in a ten-mile radius, he was sure.

"I'm sorry, kitten," he said dejectedly, sliding off the edge of their bed and pulling Buffy's petite frame into his arms. "Was just surprised, is all—didn't mean to scare you."

"I thought there was something horribly wrong," Buffy sniffed, her voice going thick with sudden tears as her mood went from raging to miserable. "I couldn't bear it if something were to happen, and you were to leave me alone, without even seeing your—"

"That's never going to happen," Spike said firmly, placing a hand firmly on her belly and listening to the two heartbeats inside of her. "I'm gonna be here for this baby, and for _you_ until we're both old and gray."

"I love you," Buffy said suddenly, lifting her face and bringing his mouth down to meet hers, their lips pressing intimately against one another as they shared a brief, passionate kiss.

"I love you too, sweetheart," Spike whispered, pulling her against his chest in a heartfelt embrace. His heart was still dead and cold in his chest, but there was life growing inside the woman he loved, a life that_ he_ helped to create—and all was right in the world as long as that remained.

He could hardly believe that he'd been given that gift, after the Shanshu prophecy had finally been fulfilled. Although neither he nor Angel had received true humanity, each had been given pieces—and among Spike's was not only the privilege of literally growing old with the woman he loved, but the ability to have children. Smiling, he pressed his lips into her blonde hair and inhaled the scent of her—he loved this woman with all of his heart, and nothing would ever change that.

Suddenly, a news anchor's voice from the television broke into the contended moment of the lovers. "Dorothy Hamill permanently ending her skating career—more at eleven."

Buffy's body stiffened in his arms, and Spike barely had time to brace himself against the Slayer's anguished scream. "NO!"


End file.
